Paper detail

Transport coefficients of driven granular fluids at moderate volume fractions

In a recent publication [Phys. Rev. E \textbf{83}, 011301 (2011)], Vollmayr--Lee \emph{et al.} have determined by computer simulations the thermal diffusivity and the longitudinal viscosity coefficients of a driven granular fluid of hard spheres at intermediate volume fractions. Although they compare their simulation results with the predictions of kinetic theory, they use the dilute expressions for the driven system and the modified Sonine approximations for the undriven system. The goal here is to carry out this comparison by proposing a modified Sonine approximation to the Enskog equation for driven granular fluids that leads to a better quantitative agreement.